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Organization of the Bahá'í Faith

The Bahá'í Faith has no priesthood and no clergy. The governance of the Bahá'í community begins on the with the local spiritual assembly, which has jurisdiction over all local affairs of the Bahá'í community. There are over 20,000 local spiritual assemblies in the world today.

The electoral process to the spiritual assembly is specifically designed to exclude parties and factions, nominations, and campaigning for office.

On the national scale, Bahá'ís elect delegates to a national convention each year. The national convention then elects a national spiritual assembly with jurisdiction over Bahá'ís throughout an entire country.

All national spiritual assemblies of the world periodically form an international convention and elect a supreme governing body known as the Universal House of Justice.

The Universal House of Justice, headquartered at Haifa, Israel, applies the laws promulgated by Bahá'u'lláh and legislates on matters not covered in the sacred texts.